College Basketball Sites in Colorado
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Colorado has embraced legal sports betting. If you are at least 21 years or older and inside the Centennial State, you can bet on college basketball here. Several licensed online sportsbooks and sportbook apps are live across Colorado.
From futures to moneylines, spreads to totals, parlays, and brackets, Colorado sportsbooks offer all kinds of NCAA basketball action. NCAA basketball futures are available all year round. During college basketball season, you can enjoy a plethora of single-game wagers, which includes March Madness bets. The only thing off-limits is prop-bets on individual college athletes.
Here’s how to bet on NCAA basketball online in Colorado including the top Colorado sports betting apps, live college basketball game lines and some NCAA basketball betting tips.
Best College Basketball Betting Sites
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Is it legal to bet on the NCAA basketball in CO?
Yes, it is absolutely legal to bet on NCAA basketball in Colorado.
As long as you are at least 21, inside the state and wager with a licensed Colorado sports betting operator, it is legal. So, this includes licensed retail sportsbooks at Colorado casinos and licensed Colorado sports betting apps that are available statewide.
It started with the US Supreme Court allowing individual states to legalize sports betting in May 2018. Colorado passed legislation legalizing sports betting in November 2019 and launched the state’s first online betting apps in May 2020.
The Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission and the Colorado Division of Gaming are in charge of regulating the market.
The CO Division of Gaming is establishing various rules and licensing standards. The group will issue up to 33 sportsbook licenses to casinos in Black Hawk, Central City, and Cripple Creek.
The regulations include ones specific to NCAA basketball, which includes a ban on prop bets for all college-level sports.
However, you can bet moneylines, spreads, and totals on every single NCAA basketball game. Plus, you can legally bet NCAA basketball parlays that include other sports, aka multi-sport parlays. Colorado sportsbooks will also run traditional bracket contests allowing you to bet on the NCAA Tournament as a whole. NCAA basketball futures allow you to wager on which team you think will win the NCAA Championship.
How to bet on NCAA basketball
Outside of traditional March Madness bracket contests and pools, NCAA basketball betting isn’t much different from betting on other team sports.
There are a few ways you can bet on NCAA basketball games or groups of games at Colorado retail sportsbooks and online betting apps. These include:
Moneyline: The moneyline bet is the easiest way to wager on a basketball game. Pick the winner of a game and wager at the currently posted odds.
Favorites have a negative number that indicates how much you’ll need to bet to win $100 plus your bet back. Underdogs have a positive number that shows how much you’ll earn for every $100 you bet.
For example, if the Colorado Buffaloes moneyline is at -120, you’ll need to bet $120 to win $100 plus your $120 bet back. If the Buffaloes’ moneyline is at +200, you’ll stand to win $200 for every $100 you bet plus your total bet back.
Spread: NCAA basketball spread bets are like point spread bets in other sports. Pick the winner of a game with the spread set by oddsmakers factored into the final score.
Spread bets are booked at moneyline odds. Most spread bets are offered at -110 odds, but that is not always the case.
For example, if the Buffaloes spread is at -5.5 (-110), they’ll need to win by at least 6 points for spread bets on them to pay. Furthermore, you’ll need to bet $110 to win $100 plus your wager back. If the Buffaloes spread is at +5.5 (+150), they’ll need to win outright or lose by 5 points for spread bets on them to win. Plus, you’ll win a total of $250 for every $100 you bet.
Totals: Choose whether the total points scored in an NCAA basketball game will be over or under the total score line set by oddsmakers. Totals bets are also booked at moneyline odds.
Parlays: Parlays combine two or more bets into a single wager. Each wager must be correct for the parlay to pay, and the odds are higher than individual wagers. Parlays are a popular way to bet on a slate of NCAA basketball games because of the potential for a big payday.
Live betting: Live or in-play betting allows you to bet on an NCAA basketball game that’s already underway. The odds adjust continuously as the action changes.
How to bet on NCAA basketball tournaments
Essentially, there are three ways you can wager on NCAA conference tournaments: brackets, futures, and game-by-game wagering.
Free or paid bracket contests
Brackets are the traditional way most Americans bet on March Madness.
You fill out the 63-game bracket prior to the start of the NCAA Tournament. You can either pay to enter it into a pool or submit it to a free-to-enter NCAA Tournament bracket contest. Colorado sportsbooks will likely run both.
To achieve a successful bracket, you must pick more game-winners than anyone else who submits a bracket. FanDuel, DraftKings, and other operators have done these previouslty.
NCAA basketball futures
NCAA basketball futures allow you to bet on a particular team to win the NCAA Tournament.
NCAA basketball futures markets begin during the off-season, and the odds adjust as the season moves forward.
Futures markets eliminate the need to wait for the NCAA Tournament team announcement on Selection Sunday. Just pick the team you think will win the NCAA Tournament and lay some money down on them.
The earlier you place a bet on a favorite, the better the odds are — usually.
Game-by-game bets
Colorado sportsbooks offer individual betting markets on every bit of NCAA basketball action, from regular-season games to every game in the conference tournaments.
Game-by-game betting allows you a certain freedom. Filling out a bracket requires you to pick a winner in every single game.
Betting game by game will enable you to be more selective and avoid betting games where you might not have all the information required.
Brackets get busted early and futures fizzle out, but you can jump in and out of game-by-game betting.
Colorado NCAA basketball teams
A number of college basketball programs reside in the Centennial State.
Colorado Buffaloes
- Conference: Big 12
- Home games: CU Events Center
- NCAA Tournament appearances: 16 — last in 2024
- Conference tournament titles: 1 — last in 2012
Colorado State Rams
- Conference: Mountain West
- Home games: Moby Arena
- NCAA Tournament appearances: 12 — last in 2024
- Conference tournament titles: 1 — last in 2003
Denver Pioneers
- Conference: Summit League
- Home games: Hamilton Gymnasium
- NCAA Tournament appearances: None
- Conference tournament titles: None
Air Force Falcons
- Conference: Mountain West
- Home games:Clune Arena
- NCAA Tournament appearances: 4 — last in 2006
- Conference tournament titles: None
Northern Colorado Bears
- Conference: Big Sky
- Home games: Bank of Colorado Arena
- NCAA Tournament appearances: 1 — Last in 2011
- Conference tournament titles: 1 — Last in 2011
NCAA basketball betting tips
Here’s a look at some solid NCAA basketball betting tips that should help you throughout the regular season, conference tournaments, and March Madness:
- Follow the team, not the sport: There are 364 Division 1 college basketball teams, making it almost impossible for you to follow them all intimately. Since you can’t possibly make reliable betting decisions for every game on the schedule, pick a team or two and watch them carefully. Gather all the information you can on your teams and make the best-informed bets you can base on that.
- Watch basketball: Watch as many games as you can and watch your picks turn into educated guesses. Form opinions based on real data by watching teams and reading box scores.
- Don’t pay for free info: You don’t need to pay for information. Take advantage of all the free info out there on the Internet. ESPN, CBS Sports, FOX Sports, and local sports affiliates follow college basketball. Follow them to find summaries, stats, and trends you can use to inform your picks.
- Think local: Local basketball beat writers, student newspapers, and local TV/radio stations all follow the region’s teams a lot closer than the national media. These are the places where you’ll find all kinds of valuable inside information you can use to make college basketball picks.
- Search for the right situation: Some teams play their best against long-time rivals, and can even upset a nationally ranked team. Look for the kind of situations oddsmakers might miss, Plus, remember, even the best teams in the country are ripe for a let downplaying a day or two after an emotional or close game. Look through a team’s schedule and results to identify the right betting situation.
- Follow the money: Opening lines are released days before a game. Pay attention, and if there’s significant movement in a line leading up to the game, you can take advantage of it.
- Roll your futures over: If you like a team to win the NCAA Championship, then bet on them in every round and let the winnings ride on the next round. Rolling the wins over will yield a much greater return throughout the tournament than your futures bet.
NCAA Basketball Betting FAQ
There are 351 schools in 32 different conferences competing in NCAAB Division I men’s basketball.
The NCAAB regular season runs from November to early March, with most teams playing anywhere up to 25 games. Each conference then hosts its tournament to determine a champion at the beginning of March.
March Madness runs for three weekends from mid-March to the first week in April, ending the NCAA basketball season.
- 2025: Florida Gators
- 2024: UConn
- 2023: UConn
- 2022: Kansas
- 2021: Baylor
- 2020: Canceled due to COVID-19
- 2019: Virginia
- 2018: Villanova
- 2017: North Carolina
- 2016: Villanova
- 2015: Duke
- 2014: Connecticut
- 2013: Louisville*
*Louisville’s participation in the 2013 NCAA Tournament was vacated on infractions.
UCLA hasn’t won the NCAA Men’s Division 1 basketball title since 1995. However, with 11 national titles, it still holds the record for the most NCAA championship wins.
The North Carolina Tar Heels have made the Final Four 20 times, the most of any team in NCAA history. From those 20 appearances, North Carolina has won seven championships. The last win came in 2017.
There’s no secret to betting on NCAA basketball. Extensive data simply support the best strategies.
That means the best NCAA basketball betting strategies are built by watching games and consuming as much information as you can about NCAA basketball.
Making informed picks using the knowledge that’s out there is always the best strategy.
There isn’t much. In fact, most of the lines in Vegas and CO sportsbooks are quite similar.
Local betting markets move local lines, so, if there is heavy betting locally it may be enough to move the line at CO sportsbooks, even though sportsbooks in Vegas won’t budge.
Second-half NCAAB lines are new lines that are set at halftime during a game. This allows you to reassess a game based on the first-half action and bet on the performance of the teams in the second half of a game alone.
There is no law prohibiting betting on local college teams and local college games in Colorado.
Keeping all the betting action open and upfront likely does more to prevent corruption and protect the integrity of local college sports than a betting ban ever will.
The NCAA is not in favor of legal betting on college basketball. Despite no evidence supporting the idea, the NCAA claims sports betting has the potential to undermine the integrity of sports, jeopardize the welfare of student-athletes and the entire intercollegiate athletics community.
Still, college football and NCAA basketball betting generate millions in handle at legal sportsbooks.
The NCAA, sports betting regulators and legal sports betting operators across the country have taken various steps to ensure the integrity of NCAA sports, including a ban on anyone involved with college athletics betting on their sports.
Get started betting on college basketball in Colorado
As the regular season winds down and focus turns to the conference tournaments, keep an eye on which teams are clicking when it matters most. You may be able to spot a Cinderalla in the making. Watch for sportsbook promotions and offers, too, so that you’ll be all set with the different NCAA betting sites in Colorado.